Internet of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles-A Multilayer Low-Altitude Airspace Model for Distributed UAV Traffic Management

Area of Science:

• Computer Science
• Aerospace Engineering
• Network Engineering

Background:

• The proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices necessitates integrating Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) into the network.
• UAVs offer solutions to terrestrial IoT limitations and new service delivery methods, leading to expected dominance in low-altitude urban airspace.
• High traffic demands for UAVs introduce significant challenges in safe operation and management.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a novel, abstract-level model for structuring uncontrolled, low-altitude airspace.
• To address the complex problem of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) traffic management.
• To evaluate the effectiveness of different UAV traffic management heuristics.

Main Methods:

• Modeling the airspace as a weighted multilayer network of nodes and airways.
• Developing and implementing three distinct UAV traffic management heuristics.
• Conducting experimental simulations to analyze network performance and traffic flow.

Main Results:

• The proposed network model provides a framework for abstract UAV traffic management.
• Simulation results demonstrate the performance variations of the tested traffic management heuristics.
• The study identifies potential strategies for managing high-density UAV operations.

Conclusions:

• Structuring airspace as a multilayer network is a viable approach for UAV traffic management.
• The choice of heuristic significantly impacts the safety and efficiency of UAV operations.
• Further research is needed to refine models and heuristics for real-world deployment.